Ultramundane: It’s Just Not Natural

I have been fighting off the cold that everyone in the office has already had. Naturally I’m convinced that I’m dying.

“I’m sick. I think I’ve got Flesh Eating Bacteria.”

“Where on earth would you get that from?”

“Well…I used a public toilet today!”

“And were you rubbing up against a lot of gay guys there?”

“No. But there was that party on Saturday. It was a narrow hallway. Even if we were all clothed at the time…”

You know you’re fat when you’re diagnosed with flesh eating bacteria and the doctor gives you forty years to live.

Having Natto in the morning guarantees that the worst thing that could happen to you all day already has.

No, I don’t really believe that. I actually rather like the stuff. But I have no idea if it’s possible to eat it without getting strings of sticky fermented soybean all over your face and shirt.

It was a bad morning already; I was late for an 8:30 AM meeting, so I ran, pushing aside old women, and marched into the conference room 5 minutes late, dripping with sweat…to discover that someone had rescheduled the meeting in an email sent at 8:20AM. I figured it was a sign, so I went to Cafe Tomo for the Natto breakfast.

I’ve read that it’s not so popular outside of Tokyo, so I feel vaguely yet appropriately urban ordering it. But while I love to feel metropolitan, there’s no point in subjecting yourself to this if you don’t actually enjoy the flavor.

Or the odor. The fan is on, the to-go container is in the kitchen trash, and I think I should go brush my teeth before the rescheduled meeting. Of course, it’s also their fault that I had natto this morning…

Old houses are a bit unnerving during big storms. There are constant rattles and occasional booms and crashes. It sounds like the upstairs neighbors are jumping on their floor, even though I know they’ve gone off to work. I can see where people would spend a night in the place and think the place is haunted.

I’d make jokes about the Big Bad Wolf outside, but I realize the house is actually made out of wood… 

It’s been a bad week for objects that produce warmth in our house. The pilot light on the water heater went out several times, so we had a plumber come and fix that. Our gas heater makes a horrible noise when you try to light it, so we haven’t been using that. I finally gave up and bought an electric blanket. “You’ve been replaced,” the Boyfriend told me when I climbed into bed last night. “You’re unnecessary now.”

I think he was kidding.

It has separate controls for each side, which is a nice feature since I get a little too warm at night. Of course, the controls aren’t very helpful when your bed partner throws his half of the electric blanket over you so he can cool down. (I suppose this is payback for years of blanket-stealing on my part.)

If The Boyfriend and I register as Domestic Partners, it could save me over a thousand dollars in fees on the house. On the other hand, that seems like a terribly cavalier reason to become what is as legally close to married as we can get in this state.

On yet another hand, there was a wedding happening on the staiway inside City Hall today. The same steps where thousands of gay people were married once. The groomsmen wore suits. The bride had a simple dress on, as did her bridesmaids. And as I walked down the hallway away from their wedding, holding on to a copy of the deed and the Domestic Partnership application, I had to close my eyes to keep from crying a little.

I’m not sure if that’s good or bad. 

I grew up in a time when couples sometimes dressed in matching outfits. It was a little disturbing even then. Most people know better than to do that as anything but a joke anymore. Don’t they?

Last night at our building’s HOA meeting (our excuse to have dinner and drink wine with our neighbors upstairs) we decided to move the monthly meeting date. So The Boyfriend and I pulled out our matching iPhones and checked our calendars at the table. And our upstairs neighbors pulled out their matching Treos and checked theirs.

Smartphones: the pantsuit of the 00’s.

I want to get back into the habit of writing; I miss it. Tonight I’ve been reading some of my past entries. Shit, I used to be a decent writer. What the fuck happened? it’s especially interesting to read an old entry and enjoy it, and then advance to the next entry and see me completely destroy the previous:

OK, my previous entry was pretty lame; it was artificial and forced. I posted it after literally falling asleep in my chair. But I couldn’t stitch these two parts together. And I don’t think I was done thinking about it, either.

Way to tear yourself apart there.

On the other hand, I’ve drunk a fair amount of tequila tonight. Normally (and probably this is a psychosomatic effect) tequila makes me less introspective and just more accepting of things as they are. But tonight I was not in a great mood before the Jason Webley concert so I picked the spirit that ordinarily leaves me the free-est. So perhaps I’m just in no condition to judge.